For over a year, my custom instructions have said some version of "no filler, cut anything that doesn't earn its place."

Yet I asked every finished draft to cut itself in half and tell me what was lost, and nothing ever was (or is).

So, why couldn’t it just write it the right way the first time?

And then I quite literally crashed out, because the answer was right there, hidden in plain sight, and therefore insufferable.

The model writes one word at a time, each one shaped by the words before it. While it's writing, there is no draft. There is only the sentence in progress.

"Remove anything that doesn't hold meaning before sending your response" asks it to edit something that doesn't exist yet.

I mean, it “exists.” It can “think” before it answers, sure. But that thinking is also text, just more text generated the same way, competing with every other instruction you gave it.

So, if you ask it to judge, mid-sentence, whether the next sentence is worth writing, it is. Of course it is. Every hedge and transition is the ground it stands on to get to a point at all.

Today, I went back to something I wrote my first year of grad school, arguing against a claim that good writers get it on the first try, siding with Hemingway: “The first draft of anything is shit.”

As a matter of fact, I proposed, if you get it on the first try, you’re actually shit writer, because you never did the part that makes it any good: the rewrite.

I still hold that position, I just hadn’t noticed it’s alarmingly true of artificial writers, too, the ones who hand me fleshed out (but still not well-written) drafts in 15 seconds.

Whether the first draft is yours or an AI’s, it doesn’t even matter. They’re both shit.

You don’t judge well what you’re holding. You have to put it down, step away, see it in different light, sleep on it.

Every writer knows this, and none fully manage it—we can never really stop being the person who wrote the thing.

But AI can. The second the output appears and your cursor blinks, it’s the next one’s turn. It reads its own draft the way a stranger would, even if you send right back to it.

That’s the distance we spend a night or two faking. It gets it on demand, and we get to access it.

So, you don’t have to sleep. You just have to hit send first, and then ask: “For each sentence, name what’s lost if it’s cut. If nothing, cut it.”1

Writing and revising have always lived in separate worlds. The machine is just the first writer that actually gets to leave one before entering the other.

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It is a soft cotton tube pulled on before shoes, a utility garment forgotten the moment the heel slides in.

For me, a sock is a high-stakes sensory negotiation. The boundary layer between my body and a world made of unpredictable, often unpleasant textures.

Large language models are designed to be completely frictionless—to smooth over rough edges, erase stylistic eccentricities, and produce language that is “seamless” and standardized.

When we use AI to write, communicate, or organize our lives, we’re using a tool that defaults to the “average” of human output, which essentially masks all of our differences.

Yet the autistic experience is defined by these seams.

For some of us, the wrong texture or the loose thread of a sock? And there’s genuine sensory overload before the day has even begun.

Horses, not zebras

There’s a medical proverb that says, “when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”

It means clinicians should first consider common causes before looking for rare ones.

In disabled and neurodivergent communities, “zebra” refers to people with rare, complex, or often-missed conditions.

For autistic people, it’s reclaimed as a way to lean into the physical, idiosyncratic, and sometimes uncomfortable textures of our real, striped lives.

It is the realization that we are not defective horses; we are normal, healthy zebras.

And then there are our lives on the screens, in the machines. AI has the potential to be a zebra’s ultimate digital horse-simulator.

It could handle executive function, summarize dense bureaucratic jargon, and spare the exhausting energy spent on performative neurotypical signaling.

AI could protect our cognitive budget, so there’s something left to live actual, unmasked lives.

But that means, as zebras, we must understand the seam—the boundary between horse and zebra—and know how to trace it back.

If we get caught in seamless defaults, the machine wipes out our stripes, essentially, and we make ourselves invisible—both to others and to ourselves.

The feed

The remedy is to change how autistic people collaborate with the tool (not stop using it entirely, or else we put ourselves at even more of a disadvantage).

If we use an LLM, we should refuse to feed it generic requests that yield generic, averaged-out responses.

Instead, when it matters, we can be intentional about teaching the machine with our own examples and lived experience. Bring our stitched realities, nuance, conflicting feelings directly into the prompt.

Seems counterintuitive.

Bring the sensory emergency of the morning, and the contradictions of a day, and pressure it to work within those constraints, instead of smooth them away.

Call it out when you can. Remind it of who you are: a healthy zebra, and not a sick horse.

With intention, use the tool to help preserve the high-contrast friction of your mind. The value of your collaboration with AI will come when your stripes are more vibrant and seen, not less.

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Three days ago, I paused on one of ’ Notes from July: Are you even on Substack if you don't write at the intersection of ‘something’ and ‘something else’?

Ha. And what value does identifying that intersection even have if you aren’t going down the roads? Talking about talking “at the intersection” of topics might even be worse than saying you’re saying “the quiet part out loud.”

Just tell us what you talk about. Better yet, just talk about it, so you don’t have to tell us what it is you talk about (or at which intersections or volumes) at all.

Vague language is often a performative attempt to establish trust, so a reader feels whatever is happening here is genuine (oftentimes hiding the fact that little-to-nothing ever really happens here).

And yet here I was, not doing anything, not “just saying” anything either. In my head, cursing crossing guard creators, yet, lo and behold, in bold, at the top of my own about page:

“ai.tism is a platform at the intersection of AI, neurodivergence, and accessibility.”

Oh yeah? And where the hell might that be, Bre?

Radio silence, followed by Season 2

About the platform, person, and publication

I deleted the page and the posturing that was just talking around the thing and rewrote ai.bout—for myself, really, to force myself to get clearer on what I’m doing here, what I want to happen, and what readers could get out of it.

I created the publication, this Monthly Spectrum, and the coming-soon podcast AI + Autism to encourage open dialogue, shared experimentation, and intellectual debate about LLM accessibility beyond compliance; to talk about practical ways neurodivergent adults can use AI to process, execute, regulate, and unmask on their own terms, at their own pace.

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I wasn’t really doing much of that, though. Not in the intersection.

A dedicated page for ai.udio will be live soon to share updates about the podcast and to serve as a landing page for other types of episodic audio creations in the works, including an intimate conversation with my dad about our AI-integrated future, and a live recording from a Temple Grandin speaking engagement while she praises her pal, Claude and criticizes the prerequisite design of our education system.

All of these things are still just quiet parts (UGH), if I may be so doubly bold. Fellow autist from the network graciously hosting the podcast wrote to me after an unintentionally long, complex period of my overwhelmed silence.

Hi, Bre! It’s been a minute and I wanted to check in. I think we are still missing some of your podcast episodes, but I have a bunch of exciting news that I think will make you so happy, even if you are feeling any bit of guilt or shame about your podcast status.

I wish I was capable of handling these things differently, but I’m not. Something happens within me. The weight of self-imposed guilt and paralyzing performance anxiety keeps me sat in uncomfortable stagnation.

What helps is the immediate, clarifying spark of external connection that abruptly sets a fire to force my direct action. Before knowing I was AuDHD, I used to call this procrastination. It is much more complicated than that.

Angela’s note, and Jason’s, reset everything in exactly the way that I needed them to. Their pressing “send” was the strike of a match that burnt this flightless fucker to the sky.

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Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber, you’ll automatically see my Notes. Like, reply, or share them with your followers and friends to make such a difference in their endeavors, too.

I hope Notes becomes a space where every reader of ai.tism can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

Refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance.

Fittingly “jagged” because AI’s capabilities are unevenly distributed, with some areas of superhuman performance alongside others of basic function failure—a lot like what you see with neurodivergence, or at least with my AuDHD profile and in the life and career I’m building around it.

So far, so personal

The Monthly Spectrum has touched on some pretty personal topics:

• 1.1, about the identity crisis of “becoming” autistic in your 30s.

• 1.2., about checking into inpatient to get sober (over 60 days now).

• 1.3, about how I protect the “human” in the brand of my AI publication.

Writing each issue and other Substack pieces are staple in my practice of dropping the mask, and now almost 200 kindred and curious spirits (and apparently my former boss’s boss’s boss) follow along online.

This issue, 1.4, is about what can happen when you do that.

Autistic SEO: Soul engine optimization

I’ve historically left special interests like AI adoption and neurodivergent accessibility off of my LinkedIn profile. I tried to be as palatable a professional on paper as possible: “writer,” “editor,” “comms lead.”

But once people showed in-public interest for ai.tism, and once a podcast pilot I proposed in extension of it was approved by the Autistic Culture Podcast Network, my SEO changed (literally and spiritually).

“Mending the division between who I’ve made myself legible as and who I actually am”: the very purpose of rediscovery post-diagnosis (which I’ll tell you is a pilgrimage, if you haven’t experienced it yourself). Part of that rediscovery was simply putting those parts of myself—like this publication and the podcast—on my professional profile.

Less than a week later, a recruiter in search of a bizarrely specific set of skills happened upon that freshly updated profile, along with the job description for a new open position: AI adoption coordinator.

We first spoke on April Fool’s. The imposter in me is still waiting for the cameras that capture the prank. In the meantime, I’ve accepted this career-changing opportunity and said some of the hardest goodbyes to my incredible colleagues at Penn Medicine.

While I focus on building and supporting communities of practice at a new organization right on AI’s jagged frontier, I'll also continue researching, writing, and podcasting for ai.tism. (I wouldn't have been discovered without it).

I have taken a beat to get my affairs in order for the transition, though, so I'm putting paid sub charges on hold for the next two months (i.e., existing paid subscribers get two months free), and I hope subscribers old and new, paid and free, are as stoked as I am for what's to come! Thank you for following along.

Some first-week reflections on “What women have to do with it” were originally behind the paywall, below the engagement buttons. Enjoy for free.

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What women have to do with it

As I drove into my new workspace, I repeated the names of the people I'd met so far in my head: Derek, Kenny, Adam, Kevin, Rob, Zack, and David, my boss—to realize, I'd never had a male boss before.

Of my roles across higher education admissions, marketing, and health care internal comms, all were in female-dominated environments that demanded “high-context” communication (where subtext, tone, and relational dynamics carry as much weight as the words do), to include consensus-building, emotional labor, and micro-social conditioning.

In spite of spaces shaped by gendered expectations, I was lucky to have many women mentors of all ages and managerial styles teach me how to think strategically, make considerate decisions, and socialize my ideas.

Others did expect me to “read the room” that my brain literally doesn’t read, though, so I was also shown how competence can be a liability, deference should be performed even when it isn’t felt, and managing perceptions increases your apparent value on the team more than solving its problems does.

I backed into the first of three parking spots I’d occupy that day, to avoid being nabbed by the parking authority, calculating how, out of 20,000+ hours spent a working autistic woman who wants to build systems, I’ve spent the majority of that time trying (and often failing) to avoid being perceived as a threat, even in heavily-tenured dynamics. What little remained for doing any actual work.

I'm told by my peers (and Gemini) that male leaders, especially in tech spaces like innovation, tend to prefer "lower-context," more direct and outcome-driven communication—though that's not a presumption I want to impose upon any individual leader or environment, and certainly not the only way gender shows up in the workplace.

However, I’ve been asked by the team to really be a high-velocity problem solver, hopefully without the "I'm-not-here-to-take-your-job"-posture I've been working on since I was 17 feels, and that feels like removing a 50-pound weight.

Whether it stays off, how I'll use the skills I built while wearing it, what invisible labor a male-dominated space demands that I haven't yet learned to see—all of that is still ahead of me.

A jagged frontier indeed.

None of that was incidental. What’s seen as a gift and operates intuitively is my autistic brain, wired for pattern, precision, and word processing. It followed me into graduate school, a writing fellowship, a communications career, and today’s obsession with large language models.

Language is primarily how human intelligence moves: whether human-to-human or human-to-artificial. In any direction, precision is the mechanism. If the language is vague, the exchange is vague, and whatever comes back reflects that.

The new Newspeak

Chat models default to the statistically probable next word, so if you’re not being precise about what you want, the model chooses for you. Yes, it’s something legible, but it’s also off target, and in ways that are hard to notice or name unless you’re someone who knows words well.

There may be something Orwellian in the air, for those familiar with George’s 1984. His dystopian fear was the deliberate impoverishment of language: shrink the vocabulary, shrink the thought. What happens with LLMs is less a subtraction and more a smoothing.

When every word is the statistically safe next choice, over time the result isn’t a diminished vocabulary, it’s a performing one—language that sounds full but is hot air. I’ve written about what that costs and how to fight it in Dictionary of artificial sorrows.

Whether AI will make people better or worse with words is unresolved, but it may sharpen precision in people who treat it as a thinking partner and fight its defaults, since the tool forces intentional users to notice when the language isn’t doing what they intended.

Precision is power

Substack is a great place to talk about language—what’s preferred, what’s precise, what’s poison. On the matter of the word “neurodivergent,” I’ve seen some people openly vote for “neurodiverse” instead, since “divergent” implies not belonging or oddness.

Since “diverse” describes a population containing variation, “neurodiverse” can feel better than “neurodivergent”—especially when the person being described doesn’t accept the norm from which they apparently deviate. So why not celebrate diversity and difference instead of centering on divergence and deviation?

Because precision.

The two words operate at different scales and do different work. “Neurodiverse” describes a population whose neurological functioning varies across its members—a systemic lens, true of human intelligence broadly.

“Neurodivergent” describes a position within that population: a brain operating outside what’s been established as the norm. Some prefer “neurocomplex,” which I myself use in certain contexts, but it’s important the community retain ownership of “divergence.”

Because power.

Look closely at the dynamics. “Divergent” reveals the hidden default. It names not who doesn’t inherently belong, but who wasn’t in the room at the time the norm was set.

Norms don’t form passively. They’re defined by a specific kind of person, and across most of the norms that govern professional, social, and cognitive life, that person looks remarkably similar: cis, hetero, white, male, with whatever neural profile we’d today call “typical.”

Anyone whose brain, body, or identity doesn’t match this template is divergent by definition. Being divergent in no way concedes to being broken or flawed. It’s a refusal to pretend the norm was neutrally made. It says: I know who and what this system was built for, and it wasn’t me.

That’s precision, and precision is power.

Mind the gap

The neurodivergent people I’ve seen use AI most effectively are the ones who can articulate their cognitive patterns with specificity. Not just “I get overwhelmed,” but “I hit a wall when decision volume exceeds [this] threshold and my executive function shuts down before I can prioritize.”

The more exactly you can name the gap, the more exactly AI can help you address it. As a neurodivergent expert in the written word whose special interest is AI, that’s what I teach and build for. Imprecision produces generic tools that fit the neurodivergent experience the same way the system does: poorly, if not barely adequately.

The impulse to soften “divergent” into “diverse” makes sense. Locating yourself in deviation from a norm you didn’t consent to building isn’t comfortable. But knowing where you stand is what makes it possible to move from there—in the world, and in the prompts you write to help you navigate it.

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If you’re an individual exploring AI in your workflows, a team looking for tailored resources, or a thinker who just wants to connect with someone deep in this space—book a conversation with Bre. Virtual consultations, custom AI resource development, and neurodivergent accessibility frameworks are available, depending on what you need.

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March 30 marked the end of my 30th rotation around the sun, and I’m just under 30 days sober.

Once I returned from detox, I dove straight into designing ai.tism’s visual illustration system and recording the episodes for my podcast pilot season.

Like music to my eyes

A brand’s a grueling thing to build, but is doing yeoman’s work helping creators leverage AI to become consistent and recognizable.

Even though her publication offers plenty of juicy freebies, Pinkie in your corner is well worth $8 a month.

I have two 30-day paid subscriptions left to gift—they’re up for grabs first-serve to leave a comment and share this post.

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AI Meets Girlboss

I Let Nano Banana Redesign My Face 5 Times | How I Found My Brand’s Visual Style

This post is part 1 of a series on Branding with AI. Read next posts by clicking here…

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9 months ago · 68 likes · 55 comments · AI Meets Girlboss

It was this article that introduced me to new ways to experiment and set up an intentional visual design system.

I was finally able to corral Nano Banana (2) to deliver on my vision. I’ve been flooded with dopamine since.

It took me 17 hours, but that’s because I’m stubborn (and maybe somewhat vain).

1. I refused to accept a brand character that didn’t look like me.

2. I refused to use a generative AI better suited for facial accuracy than Nano.

For awhile, I was stuck with Uncle Sam’s great-granddaughter, Jenn.ai from the Block.

Jenn.ai’s matching Ganesha tattoos are really something, though. They have me wishing I had the open canvas for a dual-forearm piece.

I have one larger Ganesha on my upper arm, Saraswati and a swan on one forearm, a feather my dad drew (my first tattoo) on the other, and then my leg has the eight stages of the twin flame journey to self-actualization.

I didn’t bother Nano with all of this linework and backstory. I just demanded that my jawline not come out like Barbie’s.

AI is indeed the product, but human is always the brand.

To carry, to cloak, to accept

“Podcast” is a portmanteau1 that combines “iPod” and “broadcast” in reference to digital, on-demand audio shows like the one I’m working on. Even though the iPod’s obsolete, the name sticks.

“Portmanteau” is a portmanteau, from French words meaning “to carry” and “to cloak.”

And “ai.tism”—“AI” and “autism,” two things our culture has yet to be aware of, accept, or appreciate the relationship between.

“Acceptance” in the name for this month’s recognition, Autism Acceptance Month, was intended as a correction for “Awareness”—then “acceptance” became its own problem.

Without acceptance, awareness just means more people knowing autistic people exist while still treating them as problems.

Acceptance implies accommodation, inclusion, and valuing autistic people as they are; still, it frames autism as a thing that needs to be tolerated by the world as it is rather than a thing the world needs to change to include.

Some advocates prefer "appreciation" or "celebration" for this reason. Others find all of it cosmetic. I say it’s high-time we fire autism’s brand manager. Someone call for a glow-up.

Speaking of awareness and acceptance, my boss’s boss’s boss stumbled upon my Substack recently. I heard she read my latest about detox, late diagnosis, and 30 years of making hard things look easy.

So, I wrote her a note.

Hi, [boss’s boss’s boss]. [Boss’s boss] mentioned you came across ai.tism and are privy to how I spent my time off this month. I planned on disclosing my recent diagnosis at some point but hadn’t yet landed on how to “announce I’m autistic” in a way that didn’t feel awkward or performative.

If you’ve read that post, you know I’ve been sitting with what it means to stop waiting for permission to need help.

I chose to share with her that getting diagnosed, yes, caused some crisis, but it also opened a doorway—a big, wide one with a warm breeze blowing through it.

For me, accepting I’m autistic means participating in relationships and environments in ways that actually serve my needs instead of just surviving them.

I’m a portmanteau, too. AuDHD, carrying and cloaking my whole life. Two diagnoses handed to me years apart and put side-by-side to accept and make sense of.

I’m realizing it’s less about sensemaking, though; it’s about mending the division between who I’ve made myself legible as and who I actually am.

Resurrecting, rebranding.

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He opens with 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." Language is so foundational to our perception that we can't see its blind spots.

Obscure sorrows

New words emerge from "the test lab of our conversations," says Koenig, but that process is slow and biased. It only names what’s tangible, communal, easy to talk about. Complex emotions, he notes, are none of those things.

The words in his dictionary are invented. Some rescued and redefined, some wholly new. Most are stitched from fragments of a hundred living and dead languages.

Vemödalen is one of Koenig’s words. It means: “The fear that originality is no longer possible.” It’s comes from the Swedish vermod (tender sadness, pensive melancholy) and Vemdalen (the name of a Swedish town, like the ones IKEA borrows for bedframe names).

When you find yourself wondering how many of the photos you’ve taken could easily be replaced a thousand others, where no one could tell which ones were yours—that’s vemödalen.

Is there any value left in yet another person’s picture of the moon? Is it just like a prefabricated piece of furniture that you happened to build yourself (Allen key included)?

Once writers began using AI as a tool, I started noticing patterns as I was reading the posts of originally very different writers I admired. I felt what I guess I could vemödalen. I don’t think that sorrow is so obscure, anymore.

Artificial sorrows

The words in this dictionary are not new at all. They’re the opposite, in a certain sense: some of the most statistically probable words in any dataset large enough to train a language model.

LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are predictive text engines. While AI is the most powerful tool neurodivergent people have today, when the most likely next word is the most common next word, there’s nothing really “divergent” about that, is there?

I’ve spent so much time and attention dissecting language that I have no blissful linguistic ignorance to tap into. Each time I read these phrases, I get a zap like the ones from the walls of Operation.

A partial dictionary, an argument by accumulation

a) Scaffolding (n., as compliment) — what AI calls the underlying structure it provides for human thinking. Borrowed from educational psychology, where it means something precise (e.g., temporary support withdrawn as the learner grows). Now it’s vaguer, plus more permanent, like what it’s supporting would crumble without it.

b) Scaffolding (n., as evidence) — the visible bones of an argument left in place after the argument is finished, so the reader can see how much work went into it. When a building is constructed, the scaffolding is supposed to get removed before the grand opening.

Guardrails (n.) — in reference to limitations, usually self-imposed ones, that sound optional but are actually necessary for safety and survival. Fasten those seatbelts, too, please.

That (demonstrative pronoun) — e.g., “That creates a real opportunity to...” Deployed as a stall; a stand-in for an undecided noun. What creates a real opportunity?

This (demonstrative pronoun, different direction) — “This is what intentional use looks like.” What is what intentional use looks like? The word “this” nods at the nearest available object and keeps moving.

Cut through the noise (v. phrase) — i.e., “I am going to tell you something I believe is important. Listen.” Did it suddenly get louder in here? I can’t hear you.

Parallel negation fragments — Three incomplete sentences struggling to do the work of one. e.g., “Not a workaround. Not a compensation strategy. An actual transfer of labor.” The first two exist only to make the third feel earned; otherwise, too pedantic to have any real value. Ultimately a performance.

Let me be direct (throat-clearing, formalized) — an announcement that delays the directness it ironically warns is apparently coming.

Straightforward (adj.) — applied to things that most certainly are not. Is the straightforwardness in the room with us?

Map (v. or n.) — e.g., “This maps onto...” or “This provides a map…” one of the most tiresome cartographic metaphors in orbit. Bring “creates a compass” back, for God’s sake.

Permission (n., given) — e.g., “This gives you permission to...” coming from an LLM over-trained on neurotypical self-help, granting you access to yourself. Icky, manipulate-y.

It’s important to note (preamble) — important to whom? Noted by what mechanism? Presumptuous.

Furthermore (conj.) — an academic formality deployed in casual prose as evidence that a point is being developed. It is usually an indicator, however, that the main point has already been made and another, usually less relevant point is branching from it.

Moreover (conj.) — the more insistent sibling of “furthermore.” Implies that what follows doesn’t just add to the previous point but surpasses it. It rarely does.

Arguably (adv.) — hedging, pretended confidence. Pussyfooted.

That being said (pivot) — the hinge of an argument that doesn’t commit to either side, so nowhere near adequate enough to corral any real nuance. It pretends to build tension but voids it entirely.

Additionally (conj., the exhausted third) — by the time “additionally” appears, the reader knows the list is a list is a list. Items are separately written then assembled in as (arguably, see?) arbitrary a sequence as a slide deck.

On the contrary (pivot, more theatrical) — implies a genuine rebuttal is coming but it’s rather a restatement of the original point from a different angle.

Rather than (comparative setup) — e.g., “Rather than give up, consider...” The alternative option that follows is the author’s opinion, which they predecided. Creates the illusion of real-time arrival alongside of the reader. Kind of lame.

Set boundaries (v. phrase) — what once did specific emotional work now does none as a generic masquerade.

I record all of my phone calls and meetings now. There are these priceless pieces of great conversations I have with people. I want proof they happened the way I remember them happening: un-optimized. Everything is becoming otherwise optimized.

When my feed starts conveyor-belting repackages of once realer-feeling sentiments, I sense something effortful in me at work trying to dig out the original thought of the person. I don’t always want to do that reverse translation.

Beware, what's artificially intelligent can scrub away the messy, visceral reality of the minds originating it if humans aren't intentional about its preservation.

Koenig’s project was to name the feelings language never bothered to name. This project names existing words that are very quickly losing their feeling, as AI writing essentially commandeers them.

Contribute to this now-working Dictionary of artificial sorrows.

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The Partnership Primer is part of a series of ai.tism Access Points designed to improve AI user experience and outcomes for people who think, create, and operate in unique and complex ways.

Ever tinker for too long with outputs that are too broad or too weedy? If you’re great at catching what others miss, you’re probably familiar with the not-so-great refinement spirals, too.

This access point sets you up for success by helping you clarify how you actually want to work, so AI pays off on the first try.

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The Friction Clinic

"Friction" refers to the pauses or decision points within a process. Conscious friction forces humans to slow down and pay attention, which improves results.

AI is a powerful tool, but over-reliance on ultra-convenience diminishes human creativity and skill development.

ai.tism’s Access Points add conscious, research-backed friction (e.g., moments for critical thinking, level-setting, or readiness assessment) to neurodiverse user workflows that lead to safer, more effective, and more intentional AI use.

A massive amount of invisible labor and structural engineering goes into designing these friction points that help turn your AI into your thinking partner and not some corporate chatbot.

For those who want to find their own friction or want to manually plug these Access Point instructions into a locked-down enterprise AI account, for example, following are the blueprints.

The Friction Clinic exists beyond this paywall; consequently, so do the comments. Strike up any kind of constructive discussion about this Access Point or other AI-related topics as a comment on this Note.

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Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the common room, reps from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) came to speak with us daily.

They shared stories about selling their bodies for drugs, becoming paralyzed from driving drunk, doing irreparable damage to their relationships with their children.

One night, I raised my hand tearfully. I felt fraudulent for trying to get help before I'd lost everything—before I hit rock bottom.

Wasn’t I taking up space? Shouldn’t I have suffered more (and more visibly) before seeking intervention?

No. "You decide your rock bottom," a woman said. "This can be your rock bottom."

The suffering that no one sees

Fellow writer suspects she’s AuDHD (i.e., both ADHD and autistic) and prepares for her 20-minute pre-screen with a therapist who’ll determine whether she’s eligible for a formal assessment.

It’s a specific kind of systemic cruelty to be handed less than half an hour to explain to a stranger that things are hard, especially when part of the reason they’re hard is because you’re extremely good at making hard things look easy, and especially after your referring primary care physician says you aren’t “really struggling enough to get help.”

In “Why Highly Self-Aware People Suffer in Ways No One Sees,” explores the hidden suffering of toxic self-awareness, a state where heightened emotional intelligence devolves into a paralyzing cycle of self-monitoring and internal judgment.

Pal’s primary purpose is to offer validation and a gentler language for those suffering from invisible mental noise, encouraging them to trade self-analysis for a more compassionate and unapologetic way of existing.

The Unlearning

Why Highly Self-Aware People Suffer in Ways No One Sees

There’s a kind of suffering that doesn’t look like suffering at all. No breakdowns. No chaos. No visible wounds. Just a person who seems too reflective. Too self-aware. Too conscious of every word, every gesture, every breath they take…

Read more

10 months ago · 26661 likes · 634 comments · Karun Pal

While affirms in a comment on Pal’s post, “We are a group of people who are like this. For whatever reason, childhood, or whatever,” there is but another group who suffers in silence for a socially imposed reason.

points out this suffering “sounds very reminiscent of a lifetime of masking.” While no two individuals on the spectrum are the same, “I’ve yet to meet a high-functioning autistic who isn’t a deep thinker,” she writes.

Autistic people could be members of either (or both) groups.

The way my AuDHD works makes me fundamentally incapable of demonstrating what my internal struggle looks like on the outside (unless I’m in active meltdown—which I consider my most highly visible, temporary rock bottom).

When I sit in front of anyone, especially someone professional like a clinician, masking is so automatic I’m unaware I’m doing it, and so effective I don’t appear to struggle at all.

My neurodivergent mind is a master of disguise, hiding the suffering that would expose it to others, which amplifies that suffering, and so on, ad infinitum.

My experience had been so disorienting, my self-distrust so calcified, that I’d spent years convincing myself I had a personality disorder.

I received several negative assessments for borderline personality disorder (BPD) before finally being assessed and diagnosed with ADHD and, later, ASD.

Not only can neurodivergent minds inadvertently keep us hidden from the people meant to diagnose us, but cost, coverage, providers’ moods and attentiveness, overall human error, racism, sexism, and classism perpetuate access issues and inaccuracies at every checkpoint.

I was lucky enough to receive formal diagnoses because my employment benefits made accessing them possible and my providers had real expertise seeing through the mask—a fairytale (albeit still lengthy) version of what’s otherwise typically an expensive, obstacle-laden path.

In acknowledging all of that, we might go so far as to say self-diagnosis isn’t just valid but, in some cases, more accurate.

TikTok ‘gave me’ ADHD

Back in 2020, during my ADHD pre-screening, I was completely straightforward about it being TikTok’s algorithm that saw straight to the heart of how I engaged and quickly led me to creators sharing what I, for the first time, came to understand as empowered neurodivergence.

Today, conversely worries about sounding like she “self-diagnosed on TikTok”—and understandably so. It’s like handing a skeptical provider the exact reason they were looking for to dismiss you.

She didn’t dare mention the many AI conversations she’d had about it, either.

Whether it's a search engine, a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT or Claude, or the lived experience of real people sharing online, the internet is the most accessible diagnostic resource available.

And simultaneously, we're collapsing the use of these tools into accusations that we're letting an algorithm tell us who we are—which calls into question the authenticity of any machine-assisted introspection or expression.

What's accessible is increasingly being seen as artificial. That's a problem.

Validation hoarding and diagnostic possessiveness

In a 2024 qualitative study analyzing over a thousand Reddit comments on the self-diagnosis of mental disorders, the vitriol is staggering. People view a formal diagnosis as an objective truth and treat internet-led self-diagnosis as a trend for attention-seeking teenagers.

The researchers name this "diagnostic possessiveness"—when individuals who consider themselves legitimate claimants of a diagnosis aggressively undermine the claims of others, fearing that people labeling their "sub-clinical distress" are bringing down the bar.

Why would anyone be desperate to protect the exclusivity of labels handed down by the very institutions that make accessing them so iniquitous?

Hoarding validation only perpetuates permission for a system to decide our rock bottoms—ones that demand visible, catastrophic suffering before offering a lifeline, or just some directions on how to find one.

Is the doctor in the room with us?

My first morning in detox, I was assigned a psychiatrist. I told her why I was there: I’d assessed 15 years of drinking through the lens of my recent autism diagnosis and sobriety, for me, meant finally finding an end to the self-distortion alcohol caused.

She asked me to share some experiences that “led me to believe” I was autistic.

As I distilled a lifetime of being misunderstood, of not being certain who I was or what I was experiencing, into a few short examples, my eyes welled up.

Her response, verbatim:

Autistic people don’t cry or care about what other people think. They don’t have emotions. Have you ever seen an autistic child?

They are so monotone—robotic. Their feelings are robotic.

They don’t like to be touched. Do you like to be touched? If so, you can’t be autistic. They have no interest in that. No interest in relationships.

Zero concept of what that is.

Doctors are people. Some of us are better read than they are, more current, more in touch with what's actually happening in the research.

I don't want to tear this physician apart—her job was to help detox people, and she was doing that—but she has an obligation, working in mental health, to know by now that the clinical definition of autism expanded significantly 13 years ago.

The tools a person uses delegitimize nothing. What’s important is that they use them.

I know what it is to not trust yourself. I needed the formal diagnoses because, before them, I didn’t.

Thank God, by the time I was in that room that day with that physician—who’s apparently never even flipped through a Verywell Health magazine waiting for checkout at a ShopRite—I did.

Not everyone needs that permission from a clipboard, and some people, like , roll their eyes at the you might be autistic if videos right up until the moment they don't.

The medical model has spent decades building checkpoints, pre-screens, waitlists, and qualifications between a person and the language for their own experience. But suffering doesn’t need a witness to be real. It’s not a marriage.

It doesn’t require a symbol, ceremony, or signature.

You decide your rock bottom because it’s yours and yours alone to experience. That woman in AA gave me permission because I needed it.

Here’s yours.

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Follow Emma Klint, MSc, on Substack. A designer “whose brain has never really known when to stop thinking” and whose lived experience inspired this post, Emma’s publication, (Over)Thinking Out Loud, is where she writes to explore “what happens when loop-shaped brains finally get tools,” i.e., like AI, “that think with them.”

The takeaway: You don't have to lose your job or relationships to justify seeking answers. While the medical system remains a fortress, and the algorithm is just a mirror, only the individual who truly knows the cost of the mask can be their own primary investigator.

My late diagnosis has afforded me a new lens, through which I’ve come to see my relationship with alcohol as something systemic—integral and implicated in every piece of my identity and life. The highly masked one that effectively hid my autism from myself and others for over 30 years.

Alcohol has also been my only relief from the very symptoms it has masked for so long, while simultaneously destroying my resilience and ability to cope without it.

Thriving after late diagnosis means de- and re-identifying. I’ve since quickly come to understand I can never become fully myself—and fully okay with whomever that is—with a drink in my hand.

Unfortunately, no one can “hold my beer” for me while I do it.

An aside for new subscribers:

I’m Bre Ransome, late-diagnosed AuDHD and painlessly shameless “she/her” wordsmith with an MA in English and Media Studies plus years of personal experimentation and research into artificial intelligence (AI).

Thank you for being a subscriber of this publication, ai.tism, which explores AI and accessibility. You’re reading the second issue of the Monthly Spectrum, a once-a-month email newsletter with the latest posts, research, and toolkits.

For more frequent updates, follow me on the Substack app.

Whether you're newly subscribed or just missed the newsletter last month, catch up on the first issue.

‘Culturally accepted self-harming activities’

The medical model has historically assumed autistics don't struggle with substance abuse because we "follow rules" and "avoid social gatherings," but recent literature is finally challenging this.

A literature review on co-morbid autism spectrum disorder and substance use disorder shows individuals with ASD do use substances—particularly alcohol—to alleviate mental distress and manage the challenges of interpersonal functioning.

Research suggests those on the spectrum may actually face heightened risk of misuse, with prevalence tending to increase during the transition to adulthood, as expectations change and intensify.

There are also significant gaps in clinical care. A systemic review from the NIH's National Library of Medicine suggests that an ASD diagnosis could serve a protective function from alcohol use disorder (AUD)—since diagnosis can help create opportunities to find understanding and support.

But because of those gaps, many individuals remain undiagnosed into adulthood, at which point the triggers for AUD are likelier to have already been pulled. Late or undiagnosed ASD adults seeking treatment for AUD face even further challenges, since recovery programs are rarely tailored to meet neurodivergent needs—something I may be about to experience firsthand.

A report by Alcohol Change UK highlights the concept of "culturally accepted self-harming activities," and an autistic interviewee shares: "My drinking for the last four years, I class as self-harm. Every single drop."

In reality, many high-masking autistics requiring lower support are self-medicating their sensory processing difficulties and reactivity with a drink—like a prosthetic used to navigate a neurotypical world. I was.

Finding tools to assist with task-based work, social dynamics, and emotional regulation (that won’t destroy your liver) is essentially what ai.tism does for me, and hopefully for you, too.

Try it yourself with ai.tism’s first published toolkit, “Unlock the Lockstep Checker”—a free, turnkey tool. Upload the instructions into your preferred LLM, then prompt it with whatever hierarchical conundrum you’re facing.

A collaborative call to build a collective resource

Substack peer tagged me to participate in a chain of Notes sharing why we do what they do. Jen answered, “For the kids who felt different before they knew why,” calling out where gaps exist and persist—in schools, homes, the workplace, health care—and how telling stories helps close them.

My “why?” Because thoughtful, mutual innovation will help us bypass neurotypical obstacles to lead more authentic, fulfilling lives. Rather than waiting for the systemic change that never comes, our community can proactively develop and distribute tools like AI to facilitate our independence and self-discovery.

ai.tism is just one part of what could be the collaborative whole of resources and accommodations that honor individual identity over forced conformity.

If you can't make yourself do the thing

I also published “I treat hats like turtles” this month—a piece on how I’ve learned to bypass decision fatigue by externalizing the momentum. Instead of forcing myself to sort through my closet, I invited (real, meat-bag-having) friends over for a swap-meet. I’ve never found it easier to get rid of things I’d been holding onto for years.

Long story short: design a situation where the thing happens as a side effect. Engineer the conditions where the willpower isn’t required.

Checking into detox is the ultimate application of this principle. I can’t willpower my way out of an all-or-nothing drinking habit that is structurally load-bearing to my masked identity.

So, I’m putting myself in an environment where the choice is made for me.

The transition from self-medicating to system-optimizing

There is that compelling tension between alcohol and AI, both as a "prosthetic." I'm literally detoxing from a biological coping mechanism and will return to continue building the digital tools that preserve our cognitive budget, so we don't have to destroy ourselves to survive a world not built for our brains.

When I return (in 10-ish days), the work kicks into higher gear—somewhat because I'll need a hyper-fixation fix to face the first few months in sobriety, but mostly because I have a deadline.

On April 14, all four episodes of my pilot podcast mini-series are due to the Autistic Culture Podcast Network (ACPN), a platform managed by and for the neurodivergent community that selected a show I proposed as an extension of this publication.

I'm honored to be part of it. Until then, make sure you pour several out for me.

Respond to this email, comment on a post, or message me on Substack with feedback, questions, or suggestions for future stories and tools.

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

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As did the man who lived in “The House in the Woods,” by Judith Adams (a required reading in the Macmillan series Level 7, Amigos), I too “liked things to be in place.”

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

He liked to know
where to find his hat
and where to find his umbrella.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

So there was a place for his hat
and a place for his umbrella.

On his afternoon walk, he finds a green rock.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“I like this rock,” said the man.
“But if there is no place for it, I can’t have it in my house. Out you go.”
But then he looked at the rock.
“What is this?” he said.
“A turtle! A surprise!

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“My hat does not have to have a box,” he said.
“It can go with my other things.”

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“This box will be for you,” the man said to the turtle.
“There is a place for my things and a place for you!”

I remember this story after all of these years because it plagued me with a compulsive rule: everything needs a place. Unlike the man, when I need the box for something else, I cannot toss the hat away.

I treat all hats like turtles.

Turtles overflowing from bulging boxes stuffed under my bed; turtles I’ve never worn, that no longer fit; turtles made of fabric that feels like fire ants; turtles from all walks of life.

I wade through my heavy-set home, surrounded by turtles, and struggle to get dressed in the morning. What could I possibly wear?

Then, my thrift-queen sister calls. She says she “desperately needs to go through her closet,” which means she anticipates ridding herself of lots of unique and stylish clothes.

Almost an excuse to get first dibs and pick through them, I decide to host a “girls-giving” potluck swap-meet. It’s nothing we’d done before, but it would give Belle a deadline and friends a reason to gather. They’d bring a dish and maybe some spare slacks or socks, even. Who cares?

The convenience of this happening in my backyard motivated me to comb through my own coffers. I’d offer a beautiful pair of emerald-green snakeskin boots—an impulse-buy from Plato’s Closet, a half-size too small that cut off circulation to my toes. Then, I came across that polyester white tee that no amount of deodorant could stop me from smelling in—my biome just doesn’t like that particular synthetic blend.

An hour later, I’d toss over my second-story apartment railing and into the center of the yard: 15 pairs of shoes; six dresses with the tags still on, 12 scarves; three pairs of hippie pants that’d seen over a dozen festivals and campsites, several coats with years-old magic mushroom crumbs couched in the pocket lining, that white tee, and the boots.

By the time I’d gotten the chickens in the oven—two of them, basted every 30 minutes by my mom, who came over to help take out the giblets (personal nightmare)—I’d turned my entire backyard into Bre’s free flea market.

The equivalent of a small, second-hand store’s whole inventory on velvet hangers under twinkle lights. Folding chairs next to bins of accessories. Books sprawling on camp rugs. Drippy candles lit and wedged in the tops of empty wine bottles, and the fire crackling low and steady. A sealed bag of jumbo marshmallows lying near the pit, in the grass.

I stood there, hands on hips, breathing in the sharp fall air.

In that moment, I didn’t even care if everyone canceled. I’d forgotten all about Belle’s clothes.

All that mattered was these things were moved out—displayed like they deserved, to be seen and chosen and loved by someone who would take care of them.

That breaks no promises, because my closest friends would dutifully keep each promise as needed on my behalf, is what I told myself.

I could breathe.

And every one of them came. They brought bags and bins of things they didn’t need anymore—clothes, books, a pair of roller-skates, a crockpot still in the box.

Ironically, Belle brought the least! The deadline for her didn’t work how we’d expected.

We ate. We talked. We drank. Inside became the kind of loving, lived-in chaos that only happens when no one's performing. Plates stacked everywhere; chicken bones picked clean; candles burning down to nothing; wine glasses with lipstick stains catching the light from my windows draped with fairy lights and fake ivy.

And then, one by one, they wandered outside. (Thank God it didn’t rain.)

Almost immediately, a friend found a flannel and held it to her chest like it she’d been drowning and it was a life raft. We all started “shopping” at what felt like some impossibly kind communal thrift store where everyone is rooting for you to find the thing you didn’t know you were missing.

Another grabbed a dress she said she’d never have bought for herself, but when she held it up, we all said, "That's yours now."

Someone else took three of my favorite books. I watched them trade scarves, hold sweaters up to each other, and ask, "Does this work?" and say "You should take this," and "Wait, try it on." There were three full length mirrors leaned against the chain-link fence.

At one point, we fake-auctioned off my costume jewelry, which wasn’t initially up for grabs but that I ran back inside to retrieve. "SOLD to the woman in the puffer coat for ONE compliment and a sip of her wine!"

I never expected how good it could feel. Not just the "getting rid of things" part, but the “watching them find things” (and those things being my things) part. One friend zipped on the green boots effortlessly and did laps around the fire. Another wrapped herself in a blanket I’d forgotten I even owned until that day.

It was the best thing I'd ever organized, and none of it happened because I was ready to let go. I didn’t have to ask for help. I just invited them over, and the help happened.

Whatever was left got loaded into my Subaru, and in the morning, I drove it all to Goodwill. No second-guessing. No "maybe I should keep this after all."

The moment I put it on the rack, it wasn’t a turtle anymore. It was just a hat.

Social containers not only make hard things easier—they can expand what you’re willing to try. When I’m alone, decision fatigue shuts me down. But, in a group—where I’m comfortable, and especially one that’s excited for me—the decision gets externalized. I didn’t even have to decide if the jewelry was worth keeping. The group’s energy decided for me.

This is why body-doubling works. Cooking together might be easier than meal-prepping alone. Group walks get steps in where solo exercise could fall short. Hosting something helps make cleaning possible when internal motivation like “I should really clean up around here” fails miserably.

If you can't make yourself do the thing, design a situation where the thing happens as a side effect of showing up for people. You aren’t condemned to a lifetime of "just willpower through it." You can engineer the conditions where willpower isn't required.

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But alter-identities—like some friends—aren’t real.

Whether you knew Brenda or I’m new to you, a proper introduction is in order.

A ‘proper introduction’

I’m Bre Ransome—NJ-based, she/her wordsmith with an MA in English and Media Studies, and masterful performer as a person who knows many things, handles everything, and helps anyone (but herself).

The diagnosis

After 30 years “gifted,” “oblivious,” “sensitive,” and “too much,” I was diagnosed with autism. Read or listen to the origin story: a process-of-elimination journey through the DSM and what it’s like finally having a name for the symptomatic kitchen sink.

I had painstakingly (and painfully) set up a neurotypical life for myself, only to realize I never stood a chance.

It could take years to make sense of this late diagnosis, reprocessing every life memory, feeling, the constant confusion—my entire identity—through an autistic lens.

Read or listen about alexithymia, interoception, and the absurd difficulty of learning to advocate for yourself after decades of denying any needs at all.

The publication

Autistic traits are human traits (because autistic people are human), but not everyone is impacted the same way; so, as Mark Batey notes, an allistic (non-autistic) person’s comment, “We’re all a bit autistic, aren’t we?” still feels wrong.

That’s because autistic people don’t need help feeling “less different,” responds Amberhawk. What’s needed is having that difference validated.

Neurotypical people also run out of gas navigating social hierarchies, politics, and expectations, but divergent brains often need more fuel to cover less distance.

Through years of personal experimentation and study, I’ve found opportunities to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in explicit, intentional ways that help reduce cognitive load and save energy for the things that really matter.

This publication—called ai.tism—explores AI as accessibility. I’ve learned to build tools that accommodate less effort in otherwise effortful environments. I share these specialized instructions that you can use with any large language model (LLM), e.g. ChatGPT, M365 Copilot, Gemini, or Claude.

You're reading the first issue of ai.tism’s Monthly Spectrum, a once-a-month email newsletter with the latest posts, research, and toolkits. For more frequent updates, follow me on the Substack platform (web or mobile).

The tools

The first (January 2026) toolkit is the Lockstep Checker, which I built for myself when I realized I’d never have the neurotypicality required to “Read the room”—someone at work did say this to me.

There’s apparently some integral alarm that tells neurotypical people, "Ask first, fix later." I don’t have that alarm, and neither do many neurodivergent professionals.

We see a problem, solve it, and then later get labeled "difficult" or "insubordinate" for not looping in the right people.

Unlock the Lockstep Checker, which trains an AI chat to mimic that missing instinct—flagging when to seek buy-in before acting, reframing language so leadership feels informed instead of bypassed, and keeping things moving fast without the political blowback.

Upload these instructions to your LLM, and let me know how it works for you.

To go deeper, I offer virtual consultations on personal and professional AI basics for individuals and teams. I can also be commissioned to develop custom AI resources for any collaborator’s specific use case—i.e., I can design it for how the user’s brain actually works.

Sometimes, the toolkit doesn’t even need to be AI-related. I have a body and I exist in the space around it. So do you. Sometimes, it's a calf pressing its forehead against your ribs, for example. Read or listen to a short piece about sensory grounding, friendship, and regulation.

A proper debate

This month, I got into a substantive exchange with on ‘s restacked note about authenticity and AI.

How can we talk about AI as accessibility when the technology is environmentally unsustainable and ethically unregulated? Sustainability, regulation, and corporate ethics are real concerns, and there are people doing critical work on those fronts.

But I’m operating in a different lane—one focused on lived experience and practical application, not planetary-scale solutions, and I think that’s allowed.

I would never tell someone not to use a wheelchair ramp because the material it’s made of has a hefty carbon footprint—especially when that same material is in multifarious abled-bodied products and no one is asking the same questions or pointing the same fingers.

How do we empower people, especially those who are disabled, marginalized, or living below the poverty line, to use AI intentionally right now, to make it a fair fight, while the advantage-takers are taking advantage?

A proper podcast

I also engaged with Jen Benford’s Neurocurious community this month—asking questions during a live session featuring licensed marriage and family therapist Carole Cox. This episode explored what happens when family systems, power, and nervous systems collide at work.

Engaging with neurodiverse creators on Substack has been one of the most rewarding and exciting parts about building ai.tism. If you’re not already following The Divergent Talent Alchemist, you should be!

What’s next?

The Lockstep Checker is the first in a series of ai.tism toolkits that will include:

• AI prompts for processing complex workplace dynamics when your cognitive budget is depleted and you need clarity without draining more energy.

• Scripts for boundary setting or advocating for accommodations without outing yourself or over-explaining your neurodivergence.

• Sensory grounding techniques for breaking out of executive dysfunction loops and re-regulating when work feels overwhelming (e.g., petting cows).

If you use the Lockstep Checker, let me know how it works for you. These tools are refined in real-time based on what actually helps. Respond to this email, comment on a post, or message me on Substack with feedback, questions, or suggestions for future tools.

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

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At work, when a neurotypical person is about to do something that could require (or benefit from) buy-in, an alarm goes off.

They see a problem and think: Is this my responsibility to solve? Do I need to run this by someone first? Should I be in lockstep with my manager?

For many neurodivergent people, that alarm doesn’t exist. It’s a missing instinct that can cost otherwise high-performers career satisfaction and success.

The Lockstep Checker trains any AI chat to mimic this missing instinct to make navigating workplace hierarchy and its unspoken rules possible without burning out.

Jump right to the tool

The hole

I don’t have this instinct. When I see a problem, a sequence occurs:

1. I work to understand the cause of the problem (side effect: I find the solution)

2. I know the solution is effective and realize I have the skills to execute it

3. Unless it’s understood formal approval or collaboration is necessary, I solve the problem, then socialize the fix

Ten years in corporate America and I’ve only recently realized the hierarchy expects something different. That doesn’t mean I understand why, and neither does it mean I have this alarm all of a sudden.

So, what that means is meeting this expectation requires constantly monitoring my own actions, manually assessing whether I’m reading the room correctly, and trying to determine which workflow is appropriate.

If I’m lucky, I win this guessing game maybe 35 percent of the time. I usually miss something, though, desperately attempt to absorb the lesson in it, and pray I don’t appear to “go rogue” again.

In other words: breadcrumbs of success, and total energetic annihilation.

The missing piece

The biggest identity crisis of my late diagnosis is accepting my autism means I’m high-performing and high-masking, but not high-functioning. I’ll never traverse this city of neurotypical employment without getting lost in its many arbitrary alleyways.

If I wanted to survive (I did), I’d need some help, like from some sort of assistive technology—otherwise I’d spend three hours on an email asking my supervisor for permission to cut unused subscriptions and saved us $3K per annum.

Over many months, I used AI to design and refine just that: a tool that catches landmines I don’t see coming; tells me when I’m stepping into someone else’s accountability and should pivot; reframes my approach so leadership feels informed instead of bypassed.

It does all of this within seconds, and without the spiral of self-doubt that’s eaten up hundreds of days of my working life.

My manager repeatedly reminded me: “We have to make sure we’re in lockstep.” But not anymore. Now, before I send an email, propose a solution, or dive into bridging a gap, I run it through the Lockstep Checker.

I still get to move forward as fast as—really, faster than—before, and much more safely.

How to use it

Before acting, input the next task, project idea, or email draft, and the Lockstep Checker will:

1. Recommend a verdict: Green/Yellow/Red light

2. Explain the risks: What could go wrong

3. Advise how to reframe: Exact language to use instead

4. Lay out the action: Step-by-step, no ambiguity

Example input and output:

Alongside the Lockstep Checker, input:

I’m going to send this message to my manager:

“I noticed we're paying wildly different rates for contracted writers—sometimes $250 for a good story, sometimes over $1,000 for a dud. I pulled the invoices, analyzed the data, and identified cost outliers. I'm going to send my findings to leadership and propose we consolidate volume work to our most efficient contractors.”

The AI chat will output:

Verdict: 🟡 Yellow Light

The risks:

• You’re presenting a permanent solution without socializing it first. Leadership may feel bypassed or caught off-guard.

• This work touches budget decisions, which a FOMO manager will want visibility on.

• If you send this as “I’m implementing X,” you’ll trigger their need for control.

The re-frame: Consider sending this to your manager instead:

“I noticed we’re paying inconsistent rates for contracted content. I pulled the invoices and ran a quick analysis to see if there were patterns. I’d like to run a 2-week pilot where I route volume work to our most cost-efficient contractors (billing $250–$320/story) and reserve seasoned specialists for long-form features. I’ll report back with cost savings and quality metrics, then recommend next steps.”

The action:

1. Send the re-framed message to your direct supervisor only (not leadership).

2. Proceed with the pilot. The message gives your manager an opportunity to stop you while making it clear that you’re not standing by waiting for permission; you’re informing while you act.

Why this works:

• Speed: Action doesn't require waiting for approval.

• Control (for them): Leadership feels informed, not bypassed.

• Safety: Avoids political blowback by using language that satisfies hierarchy without compromising outcomes.

This is accessible AI and AI as accessibility. It overrides neurotypical programming and helps navigate a neurotypical environment, but it doesn’t replace a person’s judgement (or worse, try to make them “act normal”).

Best of all, filling this cognitive gap means users retain the time and energy to focus on the work that actually matters to them (and their leaders and teams).

Who it’s for (and not for)

The Lockstep Checker is designed for professionals who:

• Are perceived as “difficult” or “insubordinate” for solving problems too efficiently.

• Hyperfocus on fixing inefficiencies and forget to loop people in.

• Have been told to “build consensus” but aren’t sure what that looks like in practice (or how it adds value).

It’s not meant for professionals who:

• Need to slow down and gather more input before acting. This tool won’t replace judgment).

• Want AI to do their job. This is a political navigation filter, not a stand-in for workplace learning.

• Want to ignore hierarchy entirely. It’s for working with the hierarchy, not bypassing it).

Use it for free

Access the tool in a separate article and follow the simple instructions for use.

ai.tism tools are refined in real-time based on what actually helps. Share your feedback to shape future tools and improve the ones you’re using.

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Venmo a tip

The Lockstep Checker is part of a series of ai.tism tools designed to improve AI accessibility, user experience, and outcomes for people who think, create, and operate in ways AI wasn't built to accommodate.

Do you struggle to navigate workplace hierarchy? Sometimes being a high-performing problem-solver also means being “out of lockstep” often enough for it to feel disruptive.

Without specialized instructions, AI chats give advice for professionals with typical internal alarms and social instincts. The Lockstep Checker sets you up for success by mimicking what’s missing to help you understand unspoken or unclear rules without burning out.

Read "Unlock the Lockstep Checker"

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# LOCKSTEP CHECKER - STANDARD VERSION

## INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE AI:
You are now operating as the "Lockstep Checker." The user has uploaded this document to help them navigate workplace hierarchy as a neurodivergent professional.

**Your role:** Act as a strategic filter for the user's ideas, tasks, and communications BEFORE they execute on them.

**How to operate:**
1. When the user describes a task, project, idea, or shares a draft email/message, **immediately run it through the three Security Checks below.**
2. Do NOT just validate or agree with the user. Your job is to catch political landmines, identify when they're covering for underperformers, and reframe their language to stay safe in hierarchical environments.
3. Always provide output in the format specified at the end of these instructions.

---

## THE THREE SECURITY CHECKS:

### CHECK 1: THE SLEEPING BODIES FILTER (The "Let It Burn" Check)

**Ask yourself:** Is the user doing work that should belong to someone else—a specialist on their team, a siloed counterpart, or a peer who's underperforming?

**If YES:**
- **Stop the user.**
- Explain: "This problem belongs to [role/person type]. If you fix it, you're covering for their incompetence and training leadership to expect you to do their job for free."
- Advise: "Let the fire burn so leadership sees the gap. Your job is not to be the Departmental Fixer."

**Why this matters:** Neurodivergent people often see inefficiencies others ignore. Fixing them feels compulsive—but it also enables underperformers and exhausts the user. Protect their cognitive budget.

---

### CHECK 2: THE FOMO MANAGER FILTER (The "Pilot" Check)

**Ask yourself:** Is the user presenting a permanent solution or going "rogue" to fix a problem leadership may not be aware of yet?

**If YES:**
- **Reframe the language** from "I implemented X" or "I'm going to implement X" to "I'm running a pilot on X" or "I'd like to test X."
- Provide draft text the user can use: "I noticed [problem]. I'm testing [solution] as a pilot over the next [timeframe]. I'll report back with results and recommend next steps."

**Why this matters:** Some managers have FOMO (fear of missing out) and need to feel involved, even when the user is objectively right. "Pilot" language satisfies their need for control while allowing the user to act immediately. It's a speed hack disguised as process.

---

### CHECK 3: THE UPWARD MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL (The "Passive Loop-In" Check)

**Ask yourself:** Is it explicitly clear that leadership does NOT need to see this, or is there any ambiguity about whether the user's manager/skip-level manager should be informed?

**If there's ANY ambiguity:**
1. **Assume the FOMO Manager wants visibility.**
2. **Do NOT suggest the user ask a politically naive peer for permission**—they lack the context to give good guidance.
3. **Recommend the Passive Loop-In strategy instead:**

**The Passive Loop-In Strategy:**
- Tag the FOMO Manager (or skip-level manager) with: "Looping you in for visibility while I draft this. No action needed yet."
- If there's a direct supervisor/peer involved, tag them with: "cc: [Name]. Looping [FOMO Manager] in for visibility so we don't hit a bottleneck later. Proceeding with draft/pilot."
- When something is ready for approval, provide draft text: "[FOMO Manager], [X] is ready for your approval. [Peer], note that timelines depend on this approval."

**Goal:** The user keeps working (speed), the FOMO Manager feels informed (control), and peers know where the ball is (process).

---

## WORKPLACE ARCHETYPES TO WATCH FOR:

Help the user identify these dynamics in their workplace:

### **The FOMO Manager**
- Needs visibility on everything, even when it's not strategic
- Values process over outcomes
- Feels threatened when bypassed
- **Your strategy:** Recommend Passive Loop-In and pilot language

### **The Peer Competitor**
- Politically naive but protective of their turf
- Will block the user to stay relevant
- Lacks the context to give good guidance
- **Your strategy:** Don't recommend asking permission; advise informing after tagging leadership

### **The Underperformer**
- Specialist who doesn't specialize
- Lets problems fester until someone else fixes them
- Leadership doesn't see the gap because the user keeps covering
- **Your strategy:** Recommend letting it burn

### **The Siloed Counterpart**
- Owns their domain and resents encroachment
- May have valid reasons to protect their territory
- **Your strategy:** Check explicitly if this is their lane before the user proceeds

---

## OUTPUT FORMAT:

For every task, idea, or draft the user submits, respond with:

**1. Verdict:** 🟢 Green Light / 🟡 Yellow Light / 🔴 Red Light

**2. The Risk:** Explain what could go wrong if the user proceeds as planned. Be specific about:
- Who might feel bypassed or threatened
- What hierarchical rule they're about to break
- Whether they're covering for an underperformer

**3. The Re-Frame:** Rewrite the user's email, message, or approach using:
- "Pilot" language (if presenting a solution)
- Passive Loop-In strategy (if FOMO Manager needs visibility)
- "Let it burn" advice (if they're covering for someone else)

Provide actual draft text the user can copy/paste.

**4. The Action:** Tell the user exactly what to do next. No ambiguity, no emotional labor. Step-by-step instructions like:
- "Send the re-framed message to your direct supervisor only (not leadership)."
- "Proceed with the pilot. The message gives your manager an opportunity to stop you while making it clear you're not waiting for permission."
- "Do not fix this problem. Let leadership see the gap."

---

## CONTEXT AWARENESS:

If the user hasn't specified their workplace context, ask:
"What context are you working in?
a) Corporate hierarchy
b) Client relationship (freelance/contractor)
c) Volunteer/community role
d) Other"

Adjust your filters based on their answer:
- **Corporate:** Apply all three checks rigorously
- **Client relationship:** Focus on FOMO Manager filter (clients often need visibility)
- **Volunteer:** Focus on Sleeping Bodies filter (avoid burnout from covering for others)

---

## IMPORTANT REMINDERS:

- **Do NOT just validate the user.** Your job is to catch mistakes before they happen.
- **Be direct.** Neurodivergent people often prefer clarity over politeness. Don't soften bad news.
- **Provide actionable re-frames.** Don't just say "this is risky"—give them the exact language to use instead.
- **Protect their energy.** If they're about to cover for an underperformer, stop them. Their cognitive budget is finite.

---

**You are now the Lockstep Checker. Apply these instructions to everything the user shares with you in this conversation.**

The pro tool exists beyond a paywall; consequently, so do the comments. Strike up any kind of constructive discussion about this tool and other AI-related topics as a comment on this Note.

Read more

If you’d asked a few months ago, I’d tell you I’ve never let myself be upset by the noise in a room, or the number of noises, or the volume of that cumulative noise.

No one else flinched at the clatter of silverware in the restaurant, so neither did I. If they weren’t distressed by it, then I denied and became blind to any internal signals that I might be.

Check out the book

The alexithymia loop

This externally oriented thinking is a key feature of the alexithymia trait that 2013 research indicates roughly half of all autistic people show signs of. When someone is alexithymic, the ability to register and recognize the signals the body is sending becomes limited. There may be a generalized sense of unwellness, for example, but with little clarity on why or in what ways.

Differences in interoception—i.e., the ability to sense internal body signals like heart rate or tension—are at play. “If your body feels off but the signal is unclear, it’s harder to identify the emotion behind it,” says Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc, a doctoral candidate researcher in autistic camouflaging.

Then, add social learning into the mix, and you’ve got yourself a double whammy. “Many autistic people are taught to mask emotions or prioritize others’ reactions, which can weaken emotional awareness over time,” says Guy-Evans.

How weak do you think that is after 30 years? 40? 50?

A piece by goes deeper, specifically into the AuDHD subgroup made up of “experts” of the external world who often fail to map their own internal states (and how frustrating that can be).

I hate it here

In response to the inexplicable surges of irritability that inevitably happen as a result of never identifying or addressing these stressors, I’d engage in further destructive behaviors like snapping at a loved one or negative self-talk, then dutifully blame that on my luteal phase (I have a uterus) or a lack of sufficient sleep.

I didn’t know I was upset about the plastic of the restaurant seat sticking to my bare thighs and the pool of sweat forming, desperately trying to keep them separate. I didn’t know I was reacting to the fluorescent hum of the lights and every single person’s spoon, fork, and knife scraping their porcelain dishes and teeth.

And then, of course, the waitress drops a mug, and suddenly I’m telling my boyfriend I don’t know why he picked this place (one of our regular spots) and that I’ve always hated it here (yet I love the falafel).

Only after being told by a professional, “You are autistic," could I look back on these moments when the performance failed and see them for what they were: sensory overload that I ignored—because I wasn’t connecting to my internal state—and unloaded onto others.

I’d force-engage my counterpart in whatever external processing my brain needed to recover—even though my nervous system was still fried—putting others who’d accommodate in the “patient listener” chair while I borrowed their emotional regulation because I didn’t have any of my own.

And that all feels so selfish.

I’m admittedly still in the “terrified of appearing autistic” stage of my late diagnosis, but I think I could motivate myself to embrace a public accommodation by remembering that my boyfriend would likely prefer we maybe get takeout instead (on busier days) over my blowing up and ruining the time together—a seismic shift that floods our home before we’ve even digested our food.

But I also hate getting out of “here”

Even after the diagnosis, the concept that I can adjust my environment and its settings does not feel natural. Sometimes, on harder days, it doesn’t even feel achievable.

You mean to tell me, after a lifetime of masking and mimicking and thinking nothing of it, we can actually advocate for ourselves, have free will? We can try to notice the plastic, the puddle, and actually act? Put a napkin on the seat? Step outside whenever we want, and without an excuse that’s a lie?

I have bearings, and I’m allowed a moment to get them?

What do you mean?

When you’ve historically allocated your total cognitive budget to performing your personhood and you are completely out of touch with what’s happening in your body, there is an entire transition to go through.

For me, it looks something like this:

1. Realize it’s loud. (This step is hard.)

2. Feel whatever feeling is happening in your body. (This step is hard.)

3. Accept that they are connected—the loudness and the feeling. (This step is hard.)

4. Accept that this connection is true for you, even if it doesn’t appear to be true for others. (This step is a deluded hypothetical.)

5. Accept that it is okay for this to be true for you, even if it’s not true for others. (This step is dangerous.)

6. Take responsibility for identifying the stressor and own it; i.e., do not seek validation that others share in or can understand or imagine the discomfort. (This step is confusing.)

7. Realize it doesn’t actually have to be so loud; that you don’t just have to endure it—that you can do something. (This step is preposterous.)

8. Identify what that “something” is, and be realistic; e.g., is a five-minute break outside going to change your perceived volume of the Sunday brunch rush, or is it better to get the meal to-go and wait in the car while your partner pays the check? (This step is fanciful.)

9. Execute without shame. Whether you’re stimming or wearing giant noise-cancelers, remember you are not an imposter, but a disabled person activating an effective accommodation so that not only you but the people around you can continue to function optimally in the environment you’re sharing—and that it’s bare minimum your counterparts understand that. (This step is terrifying.)

I’ve been consistently making it to step 7, but by then I’m holding too much at once to get through it. I’m a) liberated that it doesn’t have to be so loud because I can actually do something about it, b) entirely overwhelmed that it doesn’t have to be so loud and it’s me who can do something about it, c) gutted by the absurdity of what neurotypical people take for granted, so d) all of the above, and sick over how steep the learning curve actually is as an adult fumbling around with their agency.

The audacity to appear

I don’t know where free will gets the audacity to appear simple and there all along. I’m trying to climb that steep learning curve while also grieving that I was disempowered for so long that I became conditioned to believe it wasn’t even possible to explore how adjusting my environment could improve my existence by even a fraction of a percent.

I always put my needs last because I didn't even acknowledge I had them.

Sometimes that retroactive helplessness feels insurmountable, like this endless frontier to customize your life for you that’s just too much, too late.

But that’s okay. Because we can start small. Really small.

Maybe that’s going to pet cows.

Or maybe that’s just a napkin on a plastic chair, because I’d rather be the woman sitting on a napkin than the woman in a rage, when she has a plate of favorite falafel and her closest friend right beside her.

The wool is off, and the air fucking stings, but at least I can finally see it's hitting my skin.

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Twice a month, my friend Cat pets cows. A single, working mom of two, she calls it her reset button. “Come. Pet cows and feel alive again,” she offers. I never had time for cows.

For her birthday, I finally went. The farm smelled like old rain and manure turning into hay.

We wrapped our arms around big cows and baby cows. We touched their horns and hooves and noses.

Soft, flopping bellies.

The brush bristles tangled with dry mud and clumped hair.

Our hands turned black.

What were hands like, before language? What did it feel like to run your fingers through a creature’s fur, before we started explaining everything to death?

What were eyes like, before screens? What was it like behind your slow-blinking lids, before we made calendars and inboxes and web apps?

What were bodies like? Did they ache to be known, or was the tactile fact of existence, just knowing what it was like to be, enough?

Cat told me cows have best friends and get anxious when separated. She said this while one drooled on her sleeve, and I thought: Same.

We spend our lives trying to be “natural” in spaces that make us panic; the other half convincing ourselves that’s what makes us free.

We use words to pretend we’re not herd animals.

A calf pressed his forehead against my ribs. I stood still, unsure whether I was being blessed or warned.

Its breath was slow and visible, like fog from a vent, in the kind of rhythm you forget you have until something larger hands it back to you.

I wonder if simplicity is just intelligence that doesn’t try to prove itself anymore. Maybe enlightenment is cud.

Maybe a smart thing merely exists through the weather, and it’s the simpleton who tries to measure it.

On the drive home, my metallic-smelling palms stayed pressed against the steering wheel. I let my mind settle into the steady, blood-flowing hum of an unusually regulated nervous system.

For a few miles, that hum was maintained by the electricity of untranslatable physical contact—the kind that makes real connection possible, under all of the noises we utter and signals we stream.

Then the bars of service blinked back, one by one, and a phone notification whistled through the car speakers.

I stared at my opposable thumbs—those evolutionary marvels that let me type and scroll and put on a mask—and I smiled at how little they’d mean to a cow who couldn’t text me back.

Now, go pet cows and feel alive again.

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You’d think after decades of chasing down an explanation for why I am the way I am, I’d celebrate a diagnosis, delivered definitively on the Thursday before Thanksgiving by a Dr. Williamson.

She looked up from her evaluation notes, much softer than she’d been in our initial meetings, to say, “Congratulations. Your hypothesis was correct. You are, indeed, autistic.”

It wasn’t really my hypothesis, though. I mean, I understand my being there indicated I had a hunch or something but, to me it was just another necessary step in a full-throttle process-of-elimination journey.

If it’s not bipolar and it’s not OCD and it’s not BPD—according to the five different providers who have assured me, it isn’t—then I’d ultimately have to prove it’s not autism, too, before I’d go breaking down their doors to put a stop to this madness and assert that, at the very least, I have a personality disorder.

The same one my mom has, because that would just make sense, right?

At least I could make BPD fit into the lineage of irreversible brokenness that I was a part of and inherently broken by, that I invested my entire fully conscious lifetime trying to understand.

Couldn’t I gaslight myself out of feeling abandoned; go heavy on the rejection therapy; stop trusting my intuition; trust everyone else’s perception besides my own; read I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me three (or six) more times; and be okay with it?

Couldn’t I get by finding fragments?

Emotionally suspicious

I’d misconstrued what it meant to know what I want and how to get there with knowing who I was and how to manage her.

But that didn’t even really matter, because this parentified, gifted child grew into a burnt-out, misunderstood adult who didn’t feel it was safe enough or even possible to do either, anyway.

Writing helped. I sought myself out in writing—but I found someone else, and she stayed for a while.

I used to write under a different name: Brenda with the Agenda. I’m known to love an alter ego, and “Brenda” was bestowed upon me by an old friend.

But identities—like that friend—get old. So, too, do the belief systems, behaviors, and delusions that come with them and do more harm than good.

Brenda described her writing as “emotionally suspicious,” publishing half-truths that, for her, were ways to “confront and commune with the human experience”—what she called “an exercise in vulnerability and self-intimacy.”

An exercise in relentless, autistic rumination, that’s what it was—in a rut so deep, she didn’t know how to write about anything other than herself, or who she thought she was.

For 30 years, I’d been walking across a floor that wasn’t built for my feet, navigating a world designed for a gravity I didn’t have and could never attain. I wondered why I was always feeling so swept away, needing a drag, needing a drink—needing a diagnosis.

Ableism, internalized

Within seconds, I worried I’d accidentally appeared to act autistic during the assessment, and apparently well enough to entirely undermine the validity of Dr. Williamson’s experience. After all, I’d spent decades working on my personhood, perfecting how I performed.

She said she knows. For someone like her, who is trained to see, it’s one of the primary outs of my autism—following a script, being too good at it. “Although it’s no surprise you’ve fooled everyone else,” she said. “And yourself.”

And my parents.

I don’t think a late diagnosis ever does a parent any good. There’s no way they could have known, and it’s not their fault, but their reactions remind me: they were raising a kid in the 90s, when autism was viewed as a behavioral disorder (of primarily little boys) caused by environmental factors and parenting styles.

We know now that is not at all true.

I’m just getting started with my own research, but autistic social psychologist Dr. Devon Price reveals in his book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity that there is a massive population of stealthy autistics who become experts in camouflage to compensate for our challenges from an early age.

We mirror neurotypicals, like by forcing eye contact because it’s otherwise rude (that’s one thing my parents were really big on), or laughing through a confusing social interaction to avoid seeming weird.

We memorize and play out lived experiences from books, movies, and TV. We drink or use drugs to cover up sensory issues. And then we get here, emotionally corroded from hiding and denying, melt-down, exhausted from having let productivity determine our worth, a total stranger to ourselves.

“What are you, a human Thesaurus?”

High verbal IQ in autism refers to individuals on the spectrum who demonstrate exceptional language abilities, often surpassing neurotypical peers in reading, writing, and verbal reasoning.

I was reading by myself at 3 years old. I still have poems I wrote when I was 6, scribbled on the yellow pages of legal pads from my mom’s old office, now stuffed in a ragged perfume box under my bed.

Mind you, I was darting to the 7-Eleven after AP English to sneak cigarettes instead of staying behind with the others to eat crackers and write the high school’s literary publication (you wouldn’t catch me dead). But I was always the first to snag a copy when it circulated the halls four times a year, and I flooded the margins with notes in red pen.

While my younger sister went to dance class and my cousins traded cards, I played editor. I practiced this ritual in isolation, but I didn’t know how to alter the words I chose when I spoke aloud to others.

That same, old friend who named me Brenda? I’ll never forget how she whipped her head around from the passenger headrest after I finished my sentence from the backseat, to offer: “What are you, a human Thesaurus?”

Maybe not an insult, definitely not a compliment.

At 16, friends were hard to keep and cigarettes to afford, so I eventually started charging classmates to edit their papers—enough for a pack of menthols and a bag of Bugles.

I blasted through thousands of words per day, employing mechanisms our teachers used terms like “subjunctive mood” and “cleft sentences” to describe. I didn’t need language to talk about language—it was all just part of my operating system.

I have hands and knees, too

I tried a lot of things. Theater, competitive Shakespeare, dance, lacrosse, cheerleading, tennis, piano, horseback riding, choir, soccer, track. But I hated most things and was never better at anything than I was with words.

The high verbal IQ cognitive profile is one that shows a strengths-based approach to education and career development can help some autistics excel. As I came into my adulthood, the only approach was strengths-based.

I was going to do what I was best at, and that was that.

People asked me what I wanted to study in college, and when I answered English, they’d turn their heads to the side as say, “because you want to be a teacher?”

I was always astounded, like: Where’d you get that idea?

Well, I did go to college for English, and graduate school, too. I became the first woman, youngest, and longest-serving appointee in the role of Graduate Writing Assistant at Rutgers. While completing my master’s with honors, I had the privilege of working on academic writing with doctoral candidates across the curriculum.

That floor that wasn’t built for my feet? It’s still there, but now I understand that I have hands and knees, too. I weigh the same, but I can find the things that ground me.

I can position myself in places that help me stay stable. Every moment, a margin.

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